EP20 - Black Swans
The Gordian Knot
Ever notice how clients with delicate trust or estate matters fail to tell the truth (or the whole truth)?
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EP19 - Cascading Estates
The Gordian Knot
When multiple generations of deceased owners interests have never been transferred, each interest MAY need to be probated and flow through to current heirs or beneficiaries.
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EP18 - Fractional Interests
The Gordian Knot
This is an introduction to the way we look at Fractional Ownership Interests and Solutions for those who receive no current benefits.
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EP17 - Property With DUST
The Gordian Knot
A quick way to evaluate a property, even before your client’s own issues have been examined.
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EP16 - Irksome Squatters
The Gordian Knot
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EP15 - 8 Properties, No Trustee
The Gordian Knot
Despite a pending property tax auction, these eight beach city properties had no living successor trustee or way to save them from loss, until...
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EP14 - What’s Bad is Good!
The Gordian Knot
How I stopped fearing and loathing California real estate title problems and came to appreciate liens and other problems
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EP13 - PETITO Format
The Gordian Knot
Rick Harmon shares his time-tested method for organizing information about messy real estate cases
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Barry Adams - California Devastation And Rebuilding
The Gordian Knot
Meet Barry Adams. Barry’s practice mainly focuses on probate and trust law and over the course of the podcast, Rick and Barry talk about some of Barry’s more tricky cases and his thoughts on that area of law in general. They also discuss the impact of the fires in California and how it is affecting the people in the region. What kind of cases do you typically encounter? Barry has been doing almost exclusively probate and trust work since 1993 so he’s had quite a bit of experience in that area. Since he’s in the middle of two major regions he gets a wide variety of cases but he often...
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David Shapiro - Tricky Puzzles and Messy Cases
The Gordian Knot
Meet David Shapiro. Rick and Dave discuss David’s trust and estate practice, tricky puzzles he’s encountered in the course of his business, and some of the more messy property cases he’s worked on. What does your practice look like? David’s practice is almost exclusively trust and estate litigation. He represents trustees and beneficiaries from all over the world. No matter what planning people will do, people will die and leave messes behind. As long as there are people around, Rick and David will always be in business. A lot of David’s cases come from other attorneys that refer him...
info_outlineLiz Courtney is one of Rick’s longtime friends and the person that originally introduced Rick to the legal community. They talk about her well-established family law practice in California and the challenges that come up when family and probate law collide.
How many legal disciplines can be involved in cases?
Family law touches on to almost every area, not only the children but there is often business division issues, property issues and more. Foreclosures will only complicate the process.
What seems to be the commonalities of all these cases?
The way people invest and spend their money affects their marital relationship. When it comes to the house, it’s not obvious who gets the house and in many cases, it’s about who can buy out the other side. When you bring in bad credit, the house often has to be sold.
The most difficult part of the puzzle is how to get both parties to agree to a solution. Liz relates a story of a case where the marital property between a divorcing couple was divided into two equal parts of 25 acres each by a marital judgment. The trouble was they didn’t do the necessary documentation to get the title procured. After the wife divorced the second husband, the process became extremely complicated and took nearly two years to resolve.
The story of the Gordian Knot originated, supposedly, a few thousand years ago. It begins with a Phrygian king trying to marry off his daughter but would only the marriage if a particular knot could be unraveled by the suiter. No one could untangle the knot until one man came along and cut the knot cleanly in two with his sword, and legend has it that man was Alexander the Great.
What first got you into law?
Liz did watch quite a bit of Divorce Court while it was on television when she was younger but it was during the Gubernatorial race between Ronald Reagan and Pat Brown that really put her on the path of becoming an attorney. Her teacher suggested they hold a debate during the race and she did such a good job that she went on to join the debate squad in High School. It was there she learned that was what attorneys do and set her on her path towards law school.
After landing her first job as a lawyer in a civil litigation firm, the lead partner that didn’t enjoy doing divorce work put her on a crazy divorce case and she became hooked. Working in a major law firm before going out on her own and starting her independent practice taught Liz many valuable lessons about how to run an efficient business.
What are some of the craziest cases you’ve had?
Liz worked on one case where the father abducted the child and left for Wales. But one of the most complicated kinds of cases she’s encountered is when your client dies in the middle of a divorce. Rick tells a story of a divorce case where both the husband and wife die from unrelated causes at separate times and each own individual properties. He ended having to get another attorney involved as well as a fiduciary to settle the case and figure out how to deal with the estate.
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